A restaurant in Lethbridge, Canada last week thought it’d be fun for an employee to stand outside dressed as a Stormtrooper to celebrate Star Wars Day on May 4. Instead, the woman in the costume ended up getting the cops called on her and her nose smashed up before being arrested.

A Chinese food delivery company has been testing an exoskeleton its couriers could wear which would allow them to carry a lot more stuff. And while they’re at it look like the world’s most expensive Death Stranding cosplayers.

In any other year this would be the time where we’d only just be ramping up our cosplay event coverage as we approached shows like Anime Expo and Comic Con, but in 2020, where everything is terrible, we are not. Instead, somehow, March’s PAX East is probably going to end up being the last show we feature on this site…

One of the biggest casualties of the global Covid-19 lockdowns are events like comic and anime conventions, because huge arenas filled with tens of thousands of people crammed in, hugging and shaking hands are a massive health risk. But that’s OK! We can still have cons on the internet.

When a cosplayer spends weeks or even months on an outfit, it’s not always so they can wear it once then bin it. A lot of the time a costume can be kept for years after its first wearing, as it’s added to and improved upon.

While cosplay cons are definitely not taking place anytime soon, Jan. 31-Feb. 2 saw Japan Expo Thailand take place. It’s one of the biggest shows in all of Asia with over 500,000 fans coming through the gates over the weekend.

It’s kinda fitting that the NBA’s All-Star Weekend was held in Chicago this year, because a couple weeks later it was also the setting for C2E2, one of the biggest cons of the year and a show that’s kinda become its own unofficial All-Star Weekend for cosplay.

Despite there currently being a reported 13 cases of coronavirus in Washington State, and two deaths, the organisers of the Emerald City Comic-Con have pledged to go ahead with the show, which is due to be held March 12-15 at the Washington State Convention Center.

Katsucon, held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, may not be as big as shows like Comic-Con, PAX or Anime Expo for the general attendee, but for cosplayers this is one of the absolute highlights of the year.